It is intended to study the stereochemiitry and mechanism of this chain elongation in a variety of systems in order to compare them with the classical case, oxaloacetate yields alpha-ketoglutarate, which occurs in the citric acid cycle. Bibliographic references: Stevens, C.M., Abraham, E.P., Huang, Fu- Chih, and Sih, C.J., "Incorporation of Molecular Oxygen at C-17 of Cephalosporin C during Its Biosynthesis" Fed. Proc. 34, 625 (1975)